trying to keep this smile inside
by vriskaarachnids
Summary: Amy/Rory, hipster!fic college AU. Also available on livejournal here:


So I'll run to a space on the horizon  
And there make a bed for us to lie on  
We won't describe even though we will try  
What it's like to be smiling in open air  
- Thoughts Of Flight, Edmund.

She's sitting, crossed legged, on the top bunk, a book on her lap, hair tumbling down from its half-hearted bun, absently tapping a rhythm out on her hip with her pencil. He's on the other side of the room, watching her instead of working, leaning back in his chair and wishing for courage to tell her.

Tell her what?

Rory doesn't know yet. His feelings are too many and too complex, messed up in his brain and unable to come together rationally; words and colours and pictures and memories tangled and torn and confused. He's tried to put it down on paper so many times, but the page stays blank.

He sighs and rubs his temples, and goes back to his laptop. He has a five hundred word essay due for tomorrow, and it's already half seven. He's trying so hard not to fail History, especially seeing as Amy loves it so much, comes out of class everyday with a huge grin and a starry look in her eyes.

It's often surprised him that the college roomed them together, a girl and a boy, but there weren't any other available roommates, and Rory wouldn't complain for the world. Amy's his best friend, now; they clicked as soon as she walked into the room while he was unpacking and announced her status as his roomie.

("And what's your name?"

"Rory Williams," a pause, he pushes up his glasses and she smiles at him and asks him if he wants the top bunk. He says, no, it's fine, you have it.

He's only been in the building an hour but he's already heard about Amy Pond, the Scottish girl majoring in history, the one with the hair and the brains and the sharp tongue. He's already in awe of her.

"Where are you from?"

"Oh, Leadworth." it's a tiny village no one's ever heard of, but Amy's eyes light up and it turns out her aunt lives there. It's the oddest coincidence, but there are a lot of odd things about Amy Pond.)

He looks around the room, still procrastinating. Amy's wardrobe is ajar, and he can see her dresses and jumpers and skirts and jeans, her favourite raggedy Converse and ugly winter boots. There are at least three boxes in there too, and Rory knows what's inside because Amy showed him once.

("It's a thing," she says carefully one day, when he off-handedly asks her about the drawing on her wall. It's a man, in a bowtie and tweed coat, and it looks like it was drawn by a young child with crayons.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to,"

"No, it's okay." she swallows, holding her mug of tea close. And then she tells him about the Doctor, the man who landed in the garden when she was seven, ate fish fingers and custard in the kitchen, and then told her he'd be five minutes. The blue, blue box and the raggedy Doctor, who never came back.

"I'm not crazy," she says sharply when she's done. He believes her, because Amy doesn't lie, Amy isn't insane, and strange things happen every day.

"I know.")

"We should go out," she says, startling him. She's reading Tolstoy at the moment; usually it has her full attention, but he's noticed that she's been extremely restless recently. Maybe it's because of the pop quiz this week, but he doubts it. Amy never worries about academic things; she's the kind of person who works hard when she needs to, and relaxes the rest of the time; she's never stressed about college.

"Where are you thinking of?"

Amy jumps down from her bunk. He's constantly worried she's going to fall and injure herself, but Amy is reckless when it comes to getting hurt, physically and emotionally. Her last break up was terrible, a week of sharp words and resolute, I'm-not-going-to-let-this-get-to-me eyes; sitting on the sofa with her duvet watching made-for-tv films and angrily updating livejournal every half hour. She was dating one of the most popular kids in college and they had nothing in common; it was never going to work.

"Jeff's crowd is going dancing tonight," she suggests. Rory's never been a fan of dancing, but anything is better than spending the night over that damn essay. He changes his shirt and swaps his boots for trainers, and then waits for Amy by the door while she gets dressed.

When she comes out of the bathroom, she's wearing her favourite patterned leggings - a kaleidoscope of colours and shapes, beautiful and eye-catching - and an oversized white jumper with stars and moons in blue and red. She looks so... so Amy, so his best friend, so I think I'm in love with you, that he has to bite back a sudden declaration of his feelings.

"Come on, Rory Williams, let's go dance with the stars," she says, grabbing his hand as they step out into the corridor. Her palm is warm and soft against his, her nails bitten down and painted cerulean, and he squeezes it gently as they walk down the tumbling old stairs and through the hallway to where he can see Jeff and his friends waiting for them.

*  
(The sun shines too bright on their shoulders as they walk down the street; Rory is impossibly conscious of Amy's arm nudging against his, the chatter of their conversation almost blown away from their lips by the breeze. She's wearing a pair of round, gold framed sunglasses, so big they obscure half her face. At the next stand they pass, she buys him a lenseless pair of massive red ones.

"We're having a competition," she tells him, brushing his cheek with her knuckle as she positions the glasses on his nose, "whoever can wear the stupidest sunglasses wins."

"Pretty sure you've won," he tells her, and she laughs and punches his shoulder.)

*  
This is the end of an era  
welcome to the modern age  
this is the end of our days  
welcome to the modern age.  
- End of An Era, The Like.

The club is packed, and Rory only just manages to find him and Amy and Jeff some seats, right at the back, next to the bar. The music is too loud and the air conditioner is broken, and Rory is beginning to regret coming. They're not even old enough to drink yet, at least here in Los Angeles, and even if they could, Rory's never been big on getting drunk.

Amy stands up suddenly, managing not to trip over her stool the way Rory would if he did the same. "I'm going to dance," she says, and then looks at Rory, "You coming?"

Rory shakes his head before he even has time to register what she's said, and then sighs as Amy disappears into the crowd before he can take back his answer. He tries to console himself by telling himself he'd only end up accidentally punching someone if he started dancing, but it isn't much consolation at all.

He hasn't heard the song before - it's not his type at all, a little on the electronic side, but not like the crap songs in the charts at the moment. He overheard Jeff calling it 'dance punk', but Jeff's a music major, so it's to be expected that he'll just invent random genres when he has no idea what he's listening to.

"And I came here to make you dance tonight  
I don't care if I'm a guilty pleasure for you..."

He can see Amy now; she's easy to spot, dancing with so much energy and happiness that Rory finds himself grinning, even though she can't see him. Her hair catches the swirling fluorescent lights, casting blue and green shadows over her fringe, and she's perfect.

"Hey," someone says from next to him, and he turns around to see that a guy of roughly his own age has taken Amy's vacated seat. Rory studies him for a moment; floppy dark hair, slightly odd, disproportionate features that, despite everything, suit him well. A bowtie paired with a tweed jacket complete his odd ensemble.

"Hi," he says, frowning a little. He looks slightly familiar, like Rory's caught a glimpse of him in study hall, "Don't I know you?"

"Oh, probably," the guy says, and his accent is very English, which surprises Rory; as far as he knew, he, Amy and Jeff were the only British student. "I know a lot of people. Like Jeff!" he says suddenly, turning slightly to grin at Jeff, who looks a little bemused but smiles back. "Hello Jeff!"

"What was your name, again?" Rory asks. Definitely familiar.

"I'm the Doctor,"

*

Amy hugs the Doctor and hits him and hugs him again, and yells at him about psychiatrists and thirteen years and fish fingers and custard, of gardens and sheds and little blue boxes, monsters and houses and cracks in walls, and then she looks back at Rory and says, "You coming too, Rory Williams?"

*

Jeff photographs all three of them the next day, sitting in their usual cafe, warming their hands against their hot coffee mugs. Rory's in the middle, an arm around each of them; to his left, Amy leans against him, shoulder digging slightly against his upper arm, while to his right, the Doctor half-smiles at the camera, throwing up a random peace sign.

"You look like some kind of indie grunge band," Jeff tells them."

*

While kissing the girl of his dreams on the lips  
When I was watching when I was clocking  
Seconds to minutes their lips locked like digits  
On safes unsafe mainly due to ticking contents  
When I was watching timer tick tocking.  
- Unsafe Safe, The Hush Sound.

They're lying on the grass, ankles tangled lazily, fingers laced together, so close he can smell her favourite Petrichor perfume. It's not quiet by any means; the wind in the trees is rustling the leaves, and he can hear the buzz of a bee a few metres away, and the grating noises of the TARDIS leaving are still fresh in his mind.

"So," Amy says, breathlessly, and she turns her head so they're so close that their noses touch, and Rory's own breathing becomes shallow.

"So," he says, and then she sits up, knees up to her chin, still and pensieve.

"We almost died," she says at last, and he can hear shock and excitement and wonder in her voice, a mix of emotions that echo his own. "Oh my god, we almost died."

And he's not quite sure why, if it's the exhilaration of seeing the stars, or relief at being alive, or maybe they're both going crazy, but she shifts position so she's facing him, and then leans down and-

She kisses him, her lips warm and soft against his, her eyes closed; his own eyes are open in bewilderment, unable to believe that she's actually... and then he shuts them and kisses her back. One hand is still holding his, while the other rests on the grass beside his head, keeping her steady; he can hear his own heart, beating with excitement, and when she finally breaks the kiss for air, he doesn't think he'll ever be more surprised, shocked, happy and incredulous than he is now.

She doesn't draw away, and her breath is hot and smells of the peppermint sweets she and the Doctor were throwing at each other earlier.

"Hello, Rory Pond," she says, and bumps his nose with hers.

FIN.


End file.
